A Day of Crashings (One, almost)

My hours seemed to diminish at work. Signs of the times I guess, I just hope the sign will only end until August. So I got two hours of extra out-of-work time although I don't feel bad for the diminished paycheck, it's like I'm still getting the normal salary sans the recent salary raise, not a pinch more.

It is on this hot day that I decided to waste time driving home by taking city route. Big mistake. A pick up truck in front of me decided to overspeed and carelessly let a 2'x4' billboard stand untied on the back. The end result was that board flew with the wind and landed in my lane. Whether or not the driver noticed it or not was irrelevant-- good thing I got my reflexes handy and was able to stop 2 feet away from the menacing black board, thus, also creating a traffic behind me who also by some lucky fate was able to stop faster than my shaking nerves can allow. So, I let that board drift the middle of the road without doing anything, I just want to go home and catch sleep.

But sleep wouldn't last long. An hour after my shaky experience which I thought was my significant event for the day another thing pops up in our place. A funeral party at the neighbor's was in actuality anything but somber. In fact, I think they are more than happy that a person was dead. One happy and intoxicated attendant drove his black, grieving '64 Corvette at the neighbors across our street. He managed to crash the side of his car at the front lights of the van, skidded across the lawn as well as the next house's lawn, make a big U-turn, managed to miss a parked orange car, my car and my roommate's car and crashed directly on the front house.

Bam!



I didn't hear the crashing itself...I just heard Tach's running which woke me up.  He already called the police.  And the toxic guy who is apparently not in his right mind told him not to call the cops and decided to run for it.  The next scenes were surreal.  The dominantly white neighborhood suddenly was there watched the fresh scene unfold (and I thought they were invisible),  my roomie and I were already in our jammies looking out from the living room at the car, the owner of the van already berserk with the neighbor for letting this thing happen.  It happened so fast.  The police force came in later, and they came in a throng.  Two firetrucks, five police cars two SUVs police cars and the neighborhood, if I haven't mentioned it before, it's like half of the police force of the tiny town were there.  The perp was later arrested at a Bart Train Station, how stupid is that.  While all this is going on I took my quick shots along with another police officer and Tach who amidst this small chaos remained calm and almost amused by the whole thing.  And why not, this story is already made for a future of happy recollections and lessons in stupidity -- only a fraction of the garden and the wall were destroyed (btw, the flower bed was recently renovated).   The friendly neighbor cursed and laughed with us for what just happened, after all this incident did more good with connecting with a few strangers, especially those I haven't met before.